It should also be a car people actually know about, not some super rare one-of-a-kind, knew-it-if-you-saw-it deal, because that’s not fair. Let’s stick so stuff with at least a few hundred in the wild.

Iffy colour combination with vaguely anthropomorphic house in Tokyo.

It actually drives “not bad” if you take it for what it is – a family van with a CVT. The engine pulls OK and it goes round corners and stops better than a lot of sedans with much vaguer (?) steering and mushier brakes. We chose ours over other vans because it was available as a 5-seater version with a large, flexible…

We drive the previous generation Voxy’s bastard half brother, called Noah, in Japan. It is a whole size class above the 1st generation xB. It also has the bendiest body of anything I have ever driven – all the rubber door seals creak and groan every time we drive it diagonally up the 1” step up to our parking place. I…

It’s magic and it’s free. The Revival is pretty pricey to get inside to see the racing, aeroplanes and wotnot (and worth every penny), but what with the parking lot, funfair, food and drink stalls, shops etc. there is so much to see and do outside that it is worth turning up just for that. If you have small kids…

Sorry to get trainspotter on you, but it is a 200 Series from the Joetsu Shinkansen. Better than the 0 series because of the bigger loading gauge on the Joetsu lines, a sort of muscled up 0 series with way better proportions.

Your daft police officer question:

Kat, tell ‘em about the paper cut-out illustrations in CG mag next....

Japan, Land of Contrasts etc. etc. and so on...

...and often with brilliant manhole covers:

In Japan it gets weirder: Japanese cars have turn signals on the right, imported RHD cars have them on the left. Our daily driver, the dogmobile, is a Toyota Noah (right), our other car is an R53 Mini (left). Imagine the hilarity that results from switching between the two, wipers on for turns, window washers for…

Um, I think you mean Ian Callum. The rest of the time Aston Martin spent under Ford's stewardship was spent massaging the theme established by the original DB7.

Daihatsu had already set the "boxiest car ever made" bar very high:

Kat, we visited the Camping Car Show last Friday afternoon. The Honda stand was heaving and we could only see the stuff over people's shoulders, not to mention being blasted by high-pitched sonic waves from the presenters, so we completely missed this.

...and the original optional floor mats were this roll-up type (same as the one outside our front door at the time), good for getting mud off your wellies onto the easy-to-clean rubber floor.

Just tweeted this to DeMuro-san, then scrolled down to here and found this post. Seconded and thirded.

Bear it in mind before you go! You can get the driving permit from your local police station if you have time - I think you need at least 7 working days but you should check. Otherwise you can get it on the day at the driving licence centre. Don't forget your Japanese licence and passport - I did...

Take care with that UK licence - unless you are still resident in the UK at the address on the licence I don't think it is valid. I still have my pink folded paper one but always get an overseas driving permit when I go home.

Me too! At my grandad's house, my first introduction to Cords, Duesenbergs, Invictas, the XK-SS, that three-seater Ferrari that was up for auction recently and many others.